


glass half empty, glass half full

by waveslikebones (bluedreaming)



Category: SHINee
Genre: Implied/Referenced Abortion, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Mpreg, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7420204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/waveslikebones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can never know someone else's story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	glass half empty, glass half full

**Author's Note:**

> [poster](http://i.imgur.com/JR2ynn1.jpg)  
>  The title is from Lauren Aquilina's [King](http://youtu.be/VNdHd1asf9s).  
>  **note:** This is a reality where mpreg exists, but it is not wolf or a/b/o.

 

 _Still, being alone doesn't mean you have to be miserable._  
_In that sense it's different from losing something._  
_You've still got yourself, even if you lose everything else._  
_You've got to have faith in yourself and not get down_  
_just because you're on your own._  
―Yōko Ogawa, [The Diving Pool: Three Novellas](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/383997-still-being-alone-doesn-t-mean-you-have-to-be-miserable)

  
  
  
  
  
The screams and shouts and bursts of wild laughter drift in through the open window, leaves whispering as they brush past each other with the wind. Kibum sits in the office, walnut and vermillion upholstery that seems more appropriate for a Scandinavian furniture catalogue than a kindergarten, and yet it fits, lines and swathes of colour and his eyes are drawn to the view outside the window, warm sunlight chilled by the white curtains drifting in the breeze. It's hard to pay attention to the principal's voice, especially now that the meat of the discussion is over; there's a folder of papers waiting for him on the edge of the glass-topped table, a kind of geometric design, Miffy the rabbit by way of M.C. Escher. His fingers are tapping the arm of the chair, warm wood under his nails, a staccato counterpoint to the swells and ebbs in the tide of noise outside.  
  
"Was there anything you wanted to add to the dialogue at this point?" Ms. Zhang asks, and Kibum blinks, refocusing on the the woman sitting behind the desk, long graceful fingers folded under her chin.  
  
"Not at this point," Kibum replies, smiling politely. He's really happy to be working on this project, even though it might be a little atypical to move from his last job designing a huge concert hall in D— to come back and build a new kindergarten, but Ms. Zhang is anything but a conventional principal and everyone knows that Kim Kibum always does what he wants. _At least when I can._  
  
He's glad to be working on this project, looking at a different kind of innovation, functional architecture for a different age group, but when Kibum gets into planning—starts working on the drawing board, paper and pencil and back to the basics to get his fingers into the grit before he moves onto AutoCAD—he always tries to get into the heads of the people for whom the building is being created, see out of their eyes so to speak. Kindergartens are for children, and Kibum doesn't have the best memories of being a child.  
  
"Thank you for meeting on such short notice," Ms. Zhang smiles, unfolding her long legs from behind her desk as she stands, Kibum following her example, elbow brushing the armrest as he reaches for the folder.  
  
The papers cascade to the floor, silently, and Kibum remembers other things falling. He blinks, eyes staring ahead, past the bookshelves lined with red and orange leather-bound tomes, into the past.  
  
"Is everything alright?" Ms. Zhang's voice drifts slightly out of focus, and Kibum has to pry his attention back to the present. He clears his throat a little, dislodges the lump that slides down to settle in his stomach.  
  
"I'm just a little tired," he explains, running fingers through hair that probably needs a trim. "I just got back yesterday so I'm a little jetlagged." It's a white lie, a small one— _"Promise me you'll never lie," "Yes, mother"_ —but it smooths the slight worry from Ms. Zhang's brow. _Worth it._ He leans down, gathers the papers quickly into the folder before she can offer to help.  
  
"We'll be in contact then," Ms. Zhang says, walking alongside him to the door, where Kibum bows slightly. Outside the glass, he can see that it's begun to rain.  
  
"I'll send the preliminary sketches soon," he says, instead of saying goodbye.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It might not make any logical sense, but there's something about the riding the subway that's incredibly comforting. Sure there are too many people, the only free seats the ones reserved for the elderly, disabled, or expecting—there's a young man sitting on one of the pink seats today, ears plugged into headphones, face buried in the collar of his hoodie, and Kibum just looks at him, the way he's either ignoring or completely oblivious to the other stares on the train—but it's the anonymity of the crowd that keeps him rooted in the now. _All these people, they have lives of their own; I'm just a random extra in the story of their life, I don't even get any speaking lines._  
  
When it gets a little too hard to be Kibum, with Kibum's past and Kibum's experiences dragging on his shoulders, weighing him down, he takes the subway and becomes a nobody for someone else.  
  
The doors open, a pleasant voice announces the stop and warns passengers to take care when leaving the train in order to mind the gap between the train and the platform, and then the doors slide shut with a ding and they're off again, the motions so smooth that Kibum barely has to lean against the metal bar.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It's still raining when he rides the elevator up from the platform, swipes his card and takes the steps up to the exit on the street his office is on, and he'd groan but he deserves it. He can picture his umbrella perfectly, sitting in the umbrella basket by the front door of his apartment, black and white tartan pattern with a red stripe running through. It's too bad that perfect recall won't keep him dry.  
  
Kibum doesn't like taxis, _so it's kind of ironic that they're my primary form of transportation_ , but it's lucky that it's not rush hour so it's not too hard to flag a taxi down. His hair is barely wet, only a few trickles of water dripping down the nape of his neck as a black car pulls up and he slides into the backseat.  
  
"N— tower on M— street," he begins, when the door he just closed opens again, and a young man half trips into the taxi. Kibum is too surprised to even say anything, and the young man is speaking to the driver, voice rough with what sounds like a cold, before Kibum even manages to open his mouth.  
  
"The Family Planning Centre on M— street," he says, and then coughs wetly into the sleeve of his hoodie.  
  
 _The hoodie._  
  
Kibum remembers the young man on the subway, sitting on the pink seats, and he feels questions bubbling on his tongue but none of them make it out of his mouth.  
  
"Is that alright with you, sir?" It takes Kibum a moment to realize that the taxi driver is speaking to him, so off balance with the intrusion into his drifting thoughts. He's nodding before his mind catches up with his body, but it's alright, it doesn't really matter.  
  
The taxi slides into traffic, weaving between cars, water splashing up to cover the side of the car as the taxi gets a little too close to the curb, and Kibum remembers all over again why he dislikes taxis so much. He's just focusing on his own breathing, in and old to keep the nausea at bay, eyes running over the pattern of the folder on his lap, when he happens to glance over at the young man.  
  
He's positively green in the face, fingers curled into the fabric of his pants, skinny jeans by the looks of them and wet to the knee. Kibum wonders if he should ask if the young man is alright, but just then the taxi pulls up to the curb and the taxi driver announces their arrival.  
  
"N— tower," he says, and Kibum reaches forward to pass the driver his card, tucking it back into his wallet after it's swiped through the machine.  
  
"Have a nice day," the driver says, the words meaningless in their rote repetition, as Kibum opens the door and emerges into the rain, letting the door slam shut as he makes a dash through the rain to the revolving glass door.  
  
 _Stop forgetting your umbrella,_ he scolds himself. _You'll get sick._  
  
  
  
  


 _I'm sure it must have been even more wonderful then,_  
_when we were young and knew nothing about the pain of growing up._  
― Yōko Ogawa, [The Diving Pool: Three Novellas](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6566734-i-m-sure-it-must-have-been-even-more-wonderful-then)

  
  
  
  
  
His secretary, Seolhyun, meets him at the door with a cup of tea. Kibum wrinkes his nose, _I wish it was coffee_ , but takes the proffered cup anyway.  
  
"How was it?" she asks, eyeing the water beading on his bistre trench and pursing her lips. Kibum shrugs out of his jacket, hanging it up in the closet.  
  
"It's a great project," he says, folder still tucked under his arm. "Ms. Zhang is very progressive so I think it'll be a good way to stretch creatively while expanding my repertoire." He means it, all of it, but it's a rote answer and Seolhyun, even though she's fresh from university, knows him and the job too well to let it slide.  
  
"This is about something else," she says, and it's not a question. Kibum's gaze darts away from her probing expression, skittering over her neatly arranged desk, the red abstract painting on the white wall, and the floor ceiling windows overlooking the street. The rain hasn't let up at all, if anything it's only gotten heavier, and the sky is too dark for broad daylight.  
  
"I was just thinking," he begins, "about working on the kindergarten, about families and things like that." There's a pause, Kibum can hear his heart beating in his ears, not quickly, just a solid _thump thump_ as Seolhyun waits for him to keep talking. _You can only lie to people who don't know you._ Except that's not true. "It's strange, how some people want families but can't have them, and other people have families but don't want them," he finally says, the words slipping out over his tongue as the rain falls from the sky, only a small part of the moisture falling from the clouds as the humidity overflows onto the ground.  
  
Seolhyun nods, stepping back to her desk. "Life doesn't make much sense at the moral level sometimes," she says, glancing back up to fix Kibum with her gaze, "but that doesn't mean that we can let things slide." The telephone on her desk rings, a soft melodic tone that still manages to cut through the thoughts in Kibum's head as he walks toward his office, folder still tucked under his arm, teacup warm in his hands before he sets it down on his desk, the door swinging silently shut.  
  
 _"Where's mother?' "I'm sorry, son, but we have to say goodbye now."_  
  
Kibum doesn't gather the papers up between his fingers, doesn't ball the creamy white in his fists, crumpling it into a tight ball of repressed emotions only to toss it towards the wastepaper basket in the corner and miss, paper skittering over the wood floor. Instead, he pulls a fresh pencil from the box, HB, and lets the initial thoughts slip out through the pencil, gliding in smooth graphite lines across the paper. He doesn't usually end up using these preliminary ideas, but they're a good way to begin to get the feeling of the space into his fingers, so that the concept feels like something he's been working on for a while, just another leaf in his mind book.  
  
 _"It's come to our attention, during this routine examination, that there are some slight irregularities in your condition." "What do you mean exactly?" "We'll send you in for a battery of tests, but it looks like I can provisionally, and most likely permanently, recommend that you not plan on bearing any children, sir, as it would be an inadvisable health risk for yourself and the fetus."_  
  
It's strange, how you might not ever think about wanting something, but if someone takes it away from you, suddenly you keep seeing it everywhere.  
  
Kibum doesn't dwell on any particular thought, especially when he's starting a new project, just lets the ideas bud in his head, bloom into flower and then wither and fade into black lines on paper. His teacup is empty and he can't remember finishing it, the rain still drawing lines of shadows over the paper that's threatening to soon be swallowed in the dim late afternoon light. No glorious sunset today, when it's completely overcast, the sky locked in for the the night.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He's waiting for a taxi, standing just inside the glass doors of the lobby; it's a dead time around now, after most people have gone home, and he's glad Seolhyun called him a taxi before driving off in her white coupe. She doesn't ask why he doesn't drive, and Kibum is quietly grateful. The rain beats down on the sidewalk, flooding the gutters, and he just wants to be home.  
  
The driver doesn't need to ask for the address since Seolhyun gave it to the dispatcher already over the phone, and it's nice to be able to sit in silence, watch the lights fly by, a part of the city and yet apart, in his own warm cocoon while the rain beats on the roof.  
  
He's not quite paying attention, eyes blurred as a familiar figure comes into focus—maybe it's the exhaustion of the rain and the long day and the past wearing it down, but he doesn't really have any excuses when he opens his mouth and tells the driver to stop, as the car coasts along the gutter, water splashing up over the windows.  
  
It's the young man from the subway, the young man who intruded on his taxi ride earlier in the day. Kibum blinks, once, twice, window rolled down as water drips into his eyes.  
  
The young man is completely soaked, walking in the puddles on the sidewalk, his cheeks slightly flushed and Kibum remembers the way he'd coughed. Before he's thinking, he opens the door slightly, even though he has no idea what to say or even what he's trying to accomplish by doing so.  
  
The young man's eyes lock with his, a sharp gaze staring right through him and there's an expression that flashes over his face, Kibum can't make it out before the young man is smoothing it over with a slightly mocking grin, as though to say,  
  
 _What? Feeling sorry for the poor guy stuck in the rain walking back from the abortion clinic?_ Because, even though it's called the Family Planning Centre, most people only go there for one reason.  
  
His thoughts catch up to his hands with a crash, _why did I even stop?_ and Kibum is closing the door, because he hasn't signed up for this, he isn't the kind of person who helps people or cares about things like families and abortion or anything like that at all.  
  
 _I'm just tired and want to go home._  
  
But an arm jams itself between the car and the car door before he's shut it completely, and Kibum watches, bemused, as the young man squeezes through the door and lets it fall shut, pressing the button to roll up the automatic window.  
  
"Where are you headed, sir?" the taxi driver asks, but the young man just shrugs and Kibum beckons the driver off. _It's none of my business. I have nothing to do with it._ He doesn't look at the young man sitting at the other end of the seat, the water dripping off onto the floor.  
  
The taxi pulls up at Kibum's apartment, under the overhang, and he pays the driver, stepping out without looking back as the taxi drives off.  
  
It's only as he's swiping his keycard on the front door panel that he notices the young man slipping in behind him.  
  
"What do you think you're doing?" he asks, frowning. _I don't know anything about you at all._  
  
"I'm going with you," the young man says, and Kibum's frown deepens.  
  
"You can't do that." He can feel a migraine coming on, a combination of the humidity in the air, the changes in air pressure, the emotions he's been grappling with all day and now this current development.  
  
"You opened the door," the young man says, and the way he says it, like an iron tight fact, almost has Kibum convinced before he blinks and sets his teeth, about to call for security until he gets a better look at the young man.  
  
He's shivering, dripping onto the wood floor of the foyer, dots of red high on his cheeks as though he might be getting a fever or at least has a cold. Kibum remembers his cough from the last taxi ride, and just then the young man looks to the side, another series of wet coughs wracking his chest.  
  
Kibum doesn't call for security, just presses the up button on the elevator and swipes his card over the pad as the elevator selects the tenth floor. The young man follows him into the elevator and Kibum doesn't say anything. When he opens the door of his apartment, the lights turning on automatically as he toes off his shoes at the entrance, all he says is,  
  
"Don't touch anything," before he's heading to his bedroom to collapse into bed, though not before checking to make sure his office door is locked.  
  
The last thing Kibum thinks as he drifts off to sleep, safe in his locked bedroom, a wool blanket tucked under his arms because he's far too tired to change into pajamas right now, is that he doesn't even know the young man's name.  
  
And then he wonders why it even matters.  
  
  
  
  


 _When we grow up, we find ways to hide our anxieties, our loneliness, our fear and sorrow._  
_But children hide nothing, putting everything into their tears,_  
_which they spread liberally about for the whole world to see._  
―Yōko Ogawa, [The Diving Pool: Three Novellas](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/625823-when-we-grow-up-we-find-ways-to-hide-our)

  
  
  
  
  
Kibum wakes up to the smell of pancakes. It's strange, not something he's expecting at all, and it takes a moment for him to orient himself, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and pushing himself up on his arms to push open the curtains. His face feels tight, his limbs heavy and he realizes he fell asleep in his clothes again.  
  
 _I have to stop doing that._  
  
And then he hears someone humming, someone humming in his apartment and yesterday's events crash back into his head as he pulls open the bedroom door.  
  
The young man is standing at the stove, flipping pancakes. He's barefoot, wearing the same clothes as yesterday but they're dry now, and Kibum's eyes catch on a white bathrobe, _my bathrobe_ , hanging over the back of the sofa. There's an ugly feeling in his chest, it doesn't make sense but there's an empty carton of milk lying on its side on the countertop, cracked eggshells in a bowl and another bowl soaking in the sink— _my space_ echoes in Kibum's head. _My safe space._  
  
He's going to say hello, something neutral at least, but when he opens his mouth, "What are you doing?" comes out instead. His voice is rough, thick with the morning and the consonants are too sharp, cutting through the space. The young man flips a pancake before looking over his shoulder,  
  
"I was hungry," he says, and the expression on his face is almost soft, a contrast from the night before, but Kibum doesn't lower his hackles. He can feel the headache from yesterday building again in his temples, his throat is dry and his mouth tastes like sawdust.  
  
"Why are you hungry?" he asks, and he knows it's a bad idea before the words leave his mouth but he can't seem to stop them, like a train hurtling towards the bottom of the cliff, propelled by its own velocity, there's no stopping this wreck, "Didn't you just get an abortion?"  
  
It's only after the words have left his mouth that Kibum realizes he feels anything about the situation at all, a kind of post-revelation wake up call as the feelings squish around in his chest, knocking some preconceived ideas he had about himself out of place, but none of that has any bearing on the choking silence that fills the room, as the young man freezes at the stove, the spatula in his hand slowly, gracefully slipping to the ground, landing with a solid _thump_.  
  
Kibum opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.  
  
"Fuck you," the young man says, and there's an edge to his voice but also a yawning emptiness looming, shadow-like, that follows him as he walks decidedly towards the door, feet slipping into his shoes before the door slams shut behind him.  
  
The sound is still ringing through the space as Kibum steps towards the stove and silently slides the last pancake onto the plate before turning off the element.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Kibum's mind is completely blank as he stands in front of the coffee machine beneath the row of cabinets, a steaming americano warm in his hand as he sits down at the table, calmly smooths a pat of butter onto a slice of toast and watches the fluffy yellow melt into the bread. The toast crunches between his teeth, exactly right and yet it doesn't taste like anything at all. The coffee, when he sips it, is too hot and burns his tongue.  
  
The apartment is quiet in the early morning light, the sun filtering through white translucent curtains. It's not raining, just a bright day, the red tulips on the coffee table contrasting with the airy space. And yet there's a creeping wrongness crawling up his spine, sitting there at the table, it feels a little bit like guilt and tastes like iron in his mouth, the cold burn of regret. For some reason the doctor's face swims into the focus of his memory.  
  
 _"I'm not sure if it was ever a part of your future plans, but it is highly advisable that you never bear any children."_  
  
The stack of kindergarten materials is still on the sideboard where he left it last night. Kibum sets his cup down on the table and pushes the chair away; the sound of the wood legs sliding over the wood floor grates, as he stands and leaves the apartment.  
  
The young man is probably gone by now, but his feet still carry him into the elevator, his fingers pressing the button for the lobby where the doors open and he steps out into the crispness of early morning. It isn't raining, but it's still September, with it a wind that's just beginning to bite.  
  
Kibum glances up and down the sidewalk but he doesn't see the young man anywhere. He's just about to turn to head back up to his apartment when there's a dull clatter, stone on stone and he sees a flat rock glancing across the brick of the sidewalk, like skipping stones but stones don't skip over cement. There's no water and no ripples, nothing ever changes, just wears down with time.  
  
The young man is sitting, tucked onto the edge of the step cornering the outside of the protruding doorway, leaning against the wall. There's a pile of stones in his lap that his fingers run through, before settling on another one which he runs through his fingers, warming it up as though that will make a difference.  
  
Stone still doesn't skip over stone.  
  
"What are you doing?" Kibum asks. The young man looks up, eyes widening slightly but he doesn't seem startled.  
  
"It's none of your business," he says, and his voice is tight, sharp over the gravel of his cough-roughened throat. His stomach rumbles though, the sound clear in the quiet of early morning, only the occasional car passing by on the road.  
  
Kibum remembers that he didn't get any breakfast.  
  
"Why are you stil here?" he asks, and then takes a step back at the look in the young man's eyes as he glares up at Kibum; he's sitting on the ground while Kibum is standing but Kibum feels like he's the one at a disadvantage.  
  
"I'm sorry," Kibum says quietly, hands digging into his pockets, twisting in the fabric. "Will you come up and join me for some breakfast?"  
  
The young man's expression is skeptical. "Don't expect me to believe you haven't eaten yet." Kibum feels slightly embarrassed, but he doesn't let it show. _White lies are important sometimes._  
  
"I haven't yet," he says, but he's pretty sure the young man doesn't believe him. It doesn't matter.  
  
"You're a jerk," the young man says, but he stands up anyway, the pile of stones in his lap clattering to the ground, and one of them bounces away before coming to rest against the wall of the building. "I'm Taemin, by the way," he says, though he doesn't offer his hand.  
  
"Kibum," Kibum says in response, as Taemin follows him back inside.  
  
  
  
  


 _Someone once wrote that worrying is the hardest thing about being a parent._  
― Yōko Ogawa, [The Housekeeper and The Professor: A Novel](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3194891-someone-once-wrote-that-worrying-is-the-hardest-thing-about)

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [SHINee shorts 2015](http://shineeshorts.livejournal.com/8124.html).


End file.
